by Rachel Rener
“Lucas,” I panted, working to catch my breath.
“No,” Eileen grunted, clutching at the ground in what appeared to be a battle she and the other Terramancers were slowly losing. “It’s not him.”
“Then who is it?” I demanded hoarsely, my eyes sweeping the crowd that had been there before we arrived.
“It’s…” Eileen strained with effort. “…It’s Aspen.”
I tore my gaze away from the throng and back to Aspen, who still hadn’t moved from her spot. Lucas was standing behind her with his arms planted at his sides, a rapt expression plastered on his face.
“What’s happening?” Elizabeth cried as she and Ted rushed over to help me to my feet.
“Aspen!” I shouted across the clearing. “What are you doing? What’s wrong?”
“She’s out of control!” Lucas screamed in response. “I can’t stop her!”
Aspen looked right past me, purple eyes still faintly glowing as she lifted her hands to the sky. The horrible sound of snapping and cracking filled my ears as a line of tornadoes tore through the forest, casting long spear-like shards of wood flying in every direction, many of them launching straight toward us.
Sophia planted her feet and threw her slender arms in front of her, throwing a barrier between our people and the raging column of cyclones. They slammed into it, sending shock waves across the forest. “She’s so strong!” she gasped, straining to maintain the shield. “I’ve never felt this kind of power from her before.”
“Because she was always holding back,” Ori replied with a scowl.
Ted nodded tersely as he surveyed the ominous clouds had begun swirling overhead. “So, what the hell is she doing now?”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak just as a plume of molten rock erupted from the crack in the ground, sending chunks of Earth superheated with Fire spraying all over the clearing.
“God damnit!” Eileen shouted. “Not again!” As she and Gauthier yelled for backup, Ted and Elizabeth both pivoted to help organize our defenses.
More and more screams were erupting throughout the clearing. Bolts of Lightning had started shattering from the sky, raining violent blows against the soil. Every time Lightning met Earth, lava spurted from the ground like blood from a bullet wound. With a roar, the sky above us opened up, adding golf ball-sized hail to the havoc. The clearing was in complete chaos as the Elements ran amok and our people frantically tried to contain them; meanwhile, fighting was starting to break out among the factions, some of which was getting physical.
Horrified, I turned back to Aspen. She was hovering in place several feet above the ground, face tilted to the sky, arms outstretched. Gusts of Wind fluttered around her skirt and blew wild tendrils of black hair into the sky.
“Aspen!” I shouted, my voice ragged and weak against the deafening wind.
Her head rolled forward to look at me, displaying an unfamiliar expression that was completely devoid of emotion. Those glowing eyes looked right past me as she cast her gaze upon the chaos she had unleashed. With all the bedlam and intermixing, there was no order to our defense; just a smattering of Elementalists who ineffectively shielded themselves from the immense power she’d unleashed.
Ignoring the hailstones as they rained sharp blows upon me, I started running toward her, only to skid to a panicked halt a few yards later. All around her and Lucas, the earth began to crumble away, creating a circular abyss that separated the two of them from the rest of us. The remainder of the Elementalists that stood behind him began to scatter, fleeing from the destruction. As they joined the others, a fresh wave of fighting descended upon the hysterical crowd as accusations were hurled as violently as the hail that battered the clearing.
I let out a furious curse. Aspen’s outstretched hands curled into fists, and all the frost on the ground evaporated, engulfing her body in a swirling cloud of vapors. The thick shroud of fog billowed away from her to descend upon the entire clearing, all at once obscuring her, Lucas, and everything else from view.
“Stop it, Aspen, please!” Lucas’s voice carried across the chaos and through the fog, amplified by a gale of Wind. “You’re hurting them! Please, don’t make me kill you!”
“Aspen!” I screamed into the mist.
At that moment, Sophia swirled out of the haze, Eileen and Ori flanking her on both sides. “Elizabeth says we’ve got to get Lucas away from her,” Sophia said, her voice calm and measured. “She and Dr. Shirvani are staying behind to suppress the rest of his Electromancers.”
I nodded, summoning a flame from my lighter just as a ball of crackling Lightning appeared in Ori’s palm.
“Let’s get this creep,” Eileen growled, fierce as I’d ever seen her.
Sophia led the way through the fog, clearing the way for the rest of us. From every angle, muted flashes of Lightning and Fire reflected against the mist. It wasn’t just Aspen, either. Hundreds of Elementalists were now physically attacking one another, spurred by fright and fury while safely shrouded by the anonymity of the fog.
“We have to hurry,” I urged Sophia, garnering a tense nod in response.
As we approached the jagged rift in the earth, too wide to traverse, Eileen deftly stitched the layers of rock back together, creating a stable bridge just wide enough for us to traverse. Once across, I could just barely make out the shadowy outline of two figures standing in the fog, one lurking directly behind the other.
I raised my hand to strike, crimson flames blazing.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a man’s voice called. The outline of a muddled figure was walking towards us, mist swirling at their heels.
“Step aside, or we’ll kill you,” I replied, meeting Ori’s amenable gaze. From beside me, the lightning he had caged between his palms crackled fiercely.
We all let out a collective gasp as Aspen appeared from the mist ahead of Lucas, who hovered inches from her heels. “I can’t let you do that,” she said, the cold and stilted affectation of her voice sending chills down my spine.
Ori let out a string of curses under his breath.
“Aspen?” Eileen exclaimed. “What the hell is happening?”
“That’s not Aspen,” I growled.
“What have you done?” Sophia demanded. Lucas didn’t bother to respond as his eyes bore into the back of Aspen’s head.
“Here’s how this is going to go,” ‘Aspen’ said in that same haunting, robotic timbre. “I’m going to kill all of you, and then myself, and then Lucas is going to stride out of the fog as a battle worn hero. He would prefer this be over quickly. He also wants me to let you know that if you try to interfere, you’ll just make my death more drawn out and painful as he fries every neuron in my brain one by one.
“If you try to attack him,” she continued with a cold vacant smile, “I’ll use my own body to shield him. If I fail and he dies, his people have orders to detonate the nuclear bomb that they’ve brought to the party. Because if he goes… we’re all going with him.”
Behind her, the veil of fog momentarily lifted to display a windowless van with two blonde-haired women inside. The one in the driver’s seat waved at us, clutching some sort of detonator in her hand while a line of young men with violet eyes positioned themselves between us and the bomb inside.
“It would be a shame to leave this planet so soon,” Lucas spoke up, finally using his own mouth. “But those of us strong enough to traverse the trans-dimensional plane will be born again, equipped with the memories of all our past lives to ensure success in the next life.” He shrugged. “What’s a single lifetime of waiting, when I have infinite lives ahead of me to ascend my rightful throne?”
I stared at him, completely paralyzed with shock. A hot raging fury was swiftly coursing through me, turning the ice in my blood to pure, blazing fire. From behind us, a fresh flurry of screams rose up and out of the mist. Helicopters had descended into the chaos; whose helicopters they were, I didn’t know and frankly didn’t care at that particular moment.
“You can die,” Aspen smiled as she summoned a lethal cocktail of Fire, Ice, Wind, molten Earth, and Lightning with her pale outstretched hand. The five Elements swirled together violently, fusing and coalescing into a strange slurry that glowed pure white, almost silver. I’d never seen anything like it. This strange mixture of Elements she wielded was utterly unprecedented, terrifying, and indescribable; apart from Aspen herself, it was the most dangerous and beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Get a load of this Sheila’s tricks!” Lucas cackled. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing, but it’s bloody epic!”
“Aspen,” I whispered softly, gazing deep into her unseeing eyes. “No matter what happens, I love you.”
“Me too,” Ori smiled wistfully.
“We love you, Aspen!” Eileen cried.
“More than we could ever say,” Sophia whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks.
The light behind Aspen’s eyes momentarily dimmed; as it did, the attack hovering in her palm flickered. Her eyebrows drew together in consternation, then shot up in surprise as a figure tumbled out of the sky and knocked her to the ground.
“Bloody Nora—” Lucas yelped.
“Pentamancers aren’t the only ones who can make a dramatic entrance!” Savannah yelled, straddling Aspen’s chest. “Now hurry the hell up! Teriyaki is getting the detonator!” My eyes nearly bulged out of my head as she parted the fog to display Teruyuki, the chief of the Shirakawa-go Ancients, leading the venerable charge to overtake Lucas’s outnumbered cultists.
“What the hell…?” I whispered.
“What are you people waiting for!” Savannah screamed, gripping Aspen’s wrists. My poor wife was pinned beneath her, eyes flashing with a rage that didn’t belong to her.
“Help her!” Eileen shouted.
My own eyes shot to Lucas, who had recovered from the shock of Savannah’s appearance a split second before the rest of us. His irises flashed the same disturbing shade of violet as Aspen’s as he raised his arm to the sky, ribbons of Ice and Fire entwining his fingers.
Ori and I lunged at the same time, knocking him to the ground while Eileen and Sophia rushed to help Savannah, who had just backhanded Aspen – still possessed by the demon from down under – across the face. A furious growl escaped my lips. I needed to rescue my wife, but I had one crucial thing to take care of first. Without a readily available source of Fire, I pinned my forearm against Lucas’s throat while Ori pinned the rest of him.
“You’re… so… screwed!” Lucas gasped, froth gathering at the edges of his mouth. “First you,” he grinned, then his eyes trailed to Aspen, who was vacantly gazing at the sky while Eileen tried to rouse her, “…then her.”
“Aiden, move!” Ori shouted, frantically trying to scramble to his feet.
As Lucas’s body erupted in crackling veins of Electricity, neither one of us could tear ourselves off him in time. The jolt hit me with the force of a truck, knocking me backward, where I rolled to the very edge of the abyss. Ori thudded beside me, both of us spasming uncontrollably.
“Worse than a box jellyfish, eh?” Lucas cackled at us. Then, his attention set on Aspen, he raised a hand to the sky. Jagged forks of Lightning crackled around his fingers and down his wrist. “Better luck next time, doll!” he grinned.
“No!” I croaked, clawing at the ground to pull myself forward.
Still straddling Aspen’s chest, Savannah whipped around, her wide green eyes trailing first on me and then on Lucas. After a split second of what appeared to be a rigorous internal argument, she jumped to her feet and pivoted to run, leaving Eileen and Sophia completely defenseless as they crouched beside Aspen, her glassy eyes still glowing with an alien power, her entire body frighteningly still. Sophia hurled a desperate ice attack that Lucas easily parried before unleashing his own assault. As another violent seizure ripped across my body from the Electricity he’d pumped into me, I could only watch my wife’s impending death in paralyzed horror.
It was at that moment that Savannah chose to run – not away, but straight into Lucas’s crackling fork of Lightning. As it slammed into her chest, an agonized scream ripped from her throat, then died as she crumpled to the ground.
“Savannah!” Eileen screamed as Sophia’s hands flew to her face.
Lucas watched the entire thing unfold, arching a single unfeeling eyebrow as he did. Then, with a small shrug, he powered up another attack, eyes glinting with raw unhinged power as they locked on my wife.
As blackness threatened to overtake me, I sank face-first into the ground, defeated.
Chapter 34
ake up! a deep voice pierced the silence, its rich, mellifluous resonance a stark contrast to the drawling croon that had been residing in my head for what felt like an eternity. Suspended in the interminable ocean of ultraviolet light that stretched infinitely before me, I briefly stirred, then once more surrendered myself to forever drift in my blinding prison of nothingness.
WAKE UP! the voice in my head thundered.
I groaned, trying to shield my eyes against the glaring light, but nothing could dim it.
I have not poured decades into your life only for it to end like this! Now, wake!
I can’t, I mumbled, my voice all but swallowed by the infinite abyss. I’m not strong enough.
Saçmalık kızım. I shall lend you my power, and we’ll rise up together.
Something inside me fluttered alive. I knew that voice. It was one that I’d heard in my head so many times before, guiding me from the depths of my subconsciousness from the time I was young. It was a voice I thought I’d bid farewell to long ago. And yet…
Barish? I whispered. Is that you?
Wake up, kızım. Wake up and take back our throne.
An explosion of light shattered inside my head, a light that was brighter than the brightest white, more blinding than the surface of the sun. It seared through the glaring, impermeable binds of my captor, vaporizing that torturous sea of ultraviolet into glorious, beautiful darkness…
My eyes popped open. A gasp wheezed past my lips as I sucked in mouthful after mouthful of crisp, ionized air. Lingering above me was a black sky, punctuated only by the shadowy sliver of a crescent moon; it was a vision so welcome I nearly wept.
“Aspen!” Eileen cried, tears staining her cheeks. “Is that you?”
I could only let out an affirmative groan.
Hoisting myself to my elbows with Sophia’s help, I took in my chaotic surroundings as quickly as possible, awash in a strangely comforting feeling – a gift, perhaps, from my empathic guardian. Lucas was clutching Lightning in his hand, his back toward me as he flung attacks and curses at a dozen of our Japanese friends who had subdued a half-dozen of his cultists. Which meant the bomb was in safe hands, at least for now. Aiden and Ori were on the ground, but alive and seemingly in one piece. But Savannah…
Sucking in a sharp breath, I crawled over to her, then gently cradled her head in my lap. The rest of her body was splayed about unnaturally, the skin of her exposed hands blackened and bleeding. I pressed my fingers to the blistering skin of her neck, anxiously feeling for a pulse. She shifted her head slightly and moaned.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I whispered as her eyes fluttered open. “It’s me.”
“Emily?” she rasped.
“I—”
She lifted a trembling hand to my cheek. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
“You…” I swallowed, feeling a heavy pit of lead settle in my stomach. “You did protect me.”
“I did?” A tear streamed down her cheek, leaving a glistening trail in the ashy soot.
“Yes,” I whispered. “You saved everyone. You’re a hero.”
She smiled, her lips trembling with effort. “That’s… that’s all I ever wanted.” I gently stroked her hair as her eyes fluttered closed once more, her shaky smile relaxing into tranquility. As the last of her strength slipped away, her he
ad fell to the side. Stifling a sob, I looked up to find Eileen and Sophia kneeling beside me, each with tears in their eyes.
“Goodbye, Savannah,” Sophia whispered. “You were a good friend.”
With effort this time, I sucked in another deep breath, expanding my lungs with air that trembled with Electricity. I didn’t feel anger. I didn’t feel fear. Only a profound, resonating calm. Gripping Sophia’s hand while Eileen looped an arm around my waist, I shakily rose from the ground, my leg searing with pain that I barely registered.
“Watch over her,” I whispered to them. They both nodded tearfully.
“You!” Lucas screamed, whipping around to face me. I sighed in relief; that terrible voice that had lived inside my head was so much more tolerable when he was screaming at me from a solid three yards away.
I cautiously made my way forward, approaching Lucas like the coiled snake in the grass he was.
“You bitch,” he choked out, jabbing a Lightning-clad finger in my direction. “I don’t know how you managed it, but I’ll kill you if it’s the last bloody thing I ever do!”
A flash of light erupted in front of my eyes, but I knew what to expect this time. As I flung out a hand, his attack ricocheted off my Electric shield like the cheap parlor trick it was.
“What the… how did you—?” he stammered, launching into another rambling tirade that I mostly tuned out.
Being able to ignore Lucas was a gift beyond compare, and I relished every moment of it as I waved an arm over my head to seize control of the Elements that had been unleashed. A half dozen tornadoes receded into the forest where they puttered out and died, taking the heavy fog with them. The lightning and hail returned to the tranquil clouds above where they belonged. And finally, with a vibrating rumble and a hiss, the wounds of the earth closed up – save for the wide chasm that separated the six of us from everyone else. Lucas needed to be kept as far away from them as possible.
Welcome back, Rosebud, a familiar, gentle voice whispered.
Mom. I blinked back tears, finding her in the crowd right away. She and Dr. Shirvani were waving at me from across the clearing, harboring about a dozen subdued cultists between them while Ted was flashing me a bandaged thumbs-up.